This is a common mistake made by newbie developers. The entirety of LOTRO character development rests on the fact that you are the “good guy”. Even the players who are roleplaying “bad guys” still take the time out of their day to help an old lady find her cat or help deliver mail or hand-deliver pies halfway across the damn country-side. When we fight, we fight evil things – orcs, bandits, generally dangerous animals and lots of boars.

We are the good guys.

But if you play through the Ale Association quests, all that comes crashing down. Most of the quests are harmless enough and are mostly just being mischievous. I have no problem with that. Spiking a rivals beer kegs, stealing some recipes, etc. Being mischievous isn’t character breaking. However, there is one quest in the chain (and it’s repeatable oddly enough) where you must convince some dwarfs that they should leave the Inn League.

But the last guy you literally beat the crap out of . . . for being friends with some Hobbits. Yes, you beat up a friendly dwarf because you disagree with his choice of friends. That’s pretty fucked up. That crosses the line from being mischievous to being an outright douchebag. It goes against everything that the entire rest of the game has directed me towards. Hell, you spend half the game uniting the various races against the forces of Mordor. Only to turn around and slap the crap out of an ally for being friends with another ally?

That doesn’t make any sense at all. It is completely contradictory to the spirit of the game, the story of the game, and the goal of the game.

On top of that, you don’t lose reputation with the Inn League for any of this. We’re being pricks to a group of people so peaceful that you can steal their recipes, sabotage their party, destroy their beer kegs and kick the crap out their members in front of them, and they just shrug it off and offer you free beer.